Facial recognition software could get you sued or fired

Those of us who have been anally removing the tags of ourselves in Facebook photos are feeling pretty smug today, as the latest privacy scandal breaks. By default, they’ve turned on a new automatic facial recognition feature. Online provacy groups are worried that this, since information about what you look like could in theory be sold on to third parties.

Two links to share. First (via Kottke, inevitably), Dazzle Camoflage for Faces. Using the same principles that the Navy used to foil submaries in the First World War, its possible to confuse facial recognition software by the clever use of makeup and hairstyles. The only problem is, to confuse the all pervasive Facebook, one would need to permenantly adopt a makeup style similar to the 1980s New Romantic look, at all times, professional and social.

Second, read this diverting short-story by Paul Ford, ‘Nanolaw With Daughter‘. When companies can gather very specific biographical, personal and location data about you, they can send you targetted law suits:

On a Sunday morning before her soccer practice, not long after my daughter’s tenth birthday, she and I sat down on the couch with our tablets and I taught her to respond to lawsuits on her own. … We had gone to a baseball game at the beginning of the season. They had played a song on the public address system, and she sang along without permission.

Look at the ridiculpous scottish government sectarian online nonsense. Its fine to sing songs in support of an outlawed terrorist organistaion yet point that out online and you will be facing a 5 year jail sentence……